Erm... Dan, that's Inoue Kyoichi hanshi 10th dan. He's one of the most powerful masters of Yoshinkan, and one of the original uchi-deshi's of Shioda Gozo. He was Yoshinkan's 2nd kancho, and was the chief Aikido instructor of Tokyo Metropolitan Police. In terms of expertise, no one questioned him. Please do your research before critizing a grandmaster.

Inoue sensei helped Shioda sensei formulate the kihon doza, which was based heavily upon the basic movements as taught by O-sensei. These are the crown jewel of Yoshinkan and the foundational movements of our techniques. We practice them until they're ingrained in our reflexes, and these movements will bleed into the techniques, which contains all of the motions. Shioda kancho has once said that to improve quickly, just do all the movements 1000 times a day.

I know it looks robotic and cumbersome, but remember that this holds true for all of Yoshinkan, and yet Yoshinkan is acknowledged by the Tokyo riot police as their required martial art. I've felt both the power that comes from these movements as demonstrated by my sensei, and my own improvements as I trained with them.

I highly encourage you to try them out before saying they're useless. These movements help focus your centreline and reduce floppy movements, and just training for a month should show visible improvements to your Aikido.

My interest is in whether or not Yoshinkan's hiriki no yosei is at all similar to the one described in O-sensei's book. Since Shioda Gozo was training with O-sensei at the very beginning of Aikido, and definately learned the original elbow power development, he must've incorporated them into the hiriki no yosei of Yoshinkan.